|
||
|
Bubka won 6 consecutive IAAF World Championships, an Olympics gold and broke the world record for men's pole vaulting 35 times (17 outdoor and 18 indoor records). He was the first to clear 6.0 metres and the first and only (as of August 2008) to clear 6.10 metres (20 feet). He holds the current outdoor world record of 6.14 metres (20 feet 1 3/4 inches), set on 31 July 1994 in Sestriere, Italy and the current indoor world record of 6.15 meters, set on 21 February 1993 in Donetsk, Ukraine Sergey Bubka was born and brought up in the city of Luhansk, Ukraine. His father was a soldier and his mother a medical assistant. He commented that neither of them were active in sports. He has an elder brother Vasiliy Bubka, who was also a pole vaulter. Vasiliy's personal best outdoors is 5.86 meters. Sergey had a ferocious competitive spirit which was channeled into multiple sports until he met the pole vault coach Vitaly Petrov. Bubka started pole vaulting at the age of 11, when he entered Dynamo Children and Youth Sports School in Voroshilovgrad, he was trained by Vitaly Petrov there.In 1978, aged 15, Bubka moved to Donetsk, Ukraine, with his coach for better training facilities.
Sergey Bubka entered international athletics in 1981 participating in the European Junior Championships where he fetched a 7th place. But the 1983 World Championships held in Helsinki proved to be his actual entry point to the mainstream world athletics, where a relatively unknown Bubka snatched the gold clearing 5.70 metres (18 feet 8 inches). The years that followed witnessed the unparalleled dominance of Bubka on pole vaulting with him setting new records and standards in pole vaulting. He set his first world record of 5.85m in 26 May 1984 which he improved to 5.88m a week after and then to 5.90 m a month after. He cleared 6.00 metres (19 feet 8 inches) on 13 July 1985 in Paris. This height had long been considered unattainable. With virtually no opponents, Bubka improved his own record over the next 10 years until he reached his career best and the current world record of 6.14 m (20 feet 1 3/4 inches) in 1994. He was the first and only (as of March 2008) athlete ever to jump over 6.10 metres in San Sebastián, Spain in 1991. He set the current world record of 6.14 metres in 1994 after some commentators had already predicted the decline of the great sportsman. Bubka increased the world record by 21 centimetres (8 inches) in the 4 years between 1984 and 1988, more than other pole vaulters had achieved in the previous 12 years. He cleared the once considered unattainable height 6.00 meters (or better) on more than 44 occasions. Bubka officially retired from his pole vault career in 2001.
|
||
|
|
